The Ringer NBA Show - Ep. 37: One-Game Overreactions With Jonathan Tjarks

Episode Date: October 27, 2016

Chris Vernon and Jonathan Tjarks discuss the Warriors loss, the weird Grizzlies win over the Timberwolves (8:52), monster numbers from Anthony Davis (25:32), and the Lakers' new life without Kobe (35:35). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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That's performasleep.com and code NBA. Welcome to the Ringer NBA show. I'm Chris Vernon. And joining me today is Ringer columnist Jonathan Charks. Hey, Jonathan, how you doing? Hey, man, how you doing? Good. So we have seen most NBA teams play at least one game.

so far. The best part about the NBA season is, though they're going to play 81 more, we get to overreact to the first game. So we'll go through a lot of teams that we have already watched so far. On opening night, it was stunning to watch the Spurs destroy the Warriors. You wrote about how the Warriors have 81 games to figure out their Achilles heel. And it kind of seemed like, I don't know, the takeaway was, for me, in some part, was, all right, everybody talked about what the Warriors added, what they lost, and maybe not enough attention was paid to losing Andrew Bogot? Is that fair? I think so. I mean, it wasn't even so much losing Bogot is who they brought in to replace him. And everyone always talks about the lineup of death with Golden State

and Draymond Green playing center and going small, but they would still play 20, 25 minutes a game with traditional centers, even in the playoffs. And they just added two guys in David West and Zaza Apuchulia who really can't move anymore, and the Spurs just attack them, exploited them all game long. Is it possible that that game was more about the Spurs than we gave it credit for? Because the topic, anything that includes Golden State, Golden State's always going to be the topic. But what did it tell us about the Spurs? Well, it just seemed like they were playing much smaller and faster than they had, maybe last year. Last year they had Tim Duncan, Boris D. Al, and West up front.

they played two big men the entire game and they really slowed the tempo and in this one when they were at their best they were playing dwayne dedman jonathan simmons there's playing much smaller faster lineups and they actually seem like the faster team against school and state which is really crazy to think about from where it was last season i would say at least 80% of our audience right now typed in jonathan simmons to wikipedia or maybe i'm overestimated just because i feel guilty but i would love to see the wikipedia numbers for How many people looked him up? Because is that game going on? I'm like, who are you? And why are you so awesome? Yeah, he kind of came out of nowhere last year. But when the playoffs came, Pop just decided not to play him at all. I'm not sure if it was just a young guy thing or what happened.

But they spurs really kind of, they went away from him in the end of the last season. But he's really the way the league is going. He's a smaller, faster player who can guard multiple positions. and just feels like the Spurs are just fine these guys creating them out of a laboratory and plugging them right in. There was a first look at a revamped bench for Golden State. What was your biggest takeaway checking that out? Well, it just felt like a lot of the press about the Warriors coming into the season for their bench

was their young guys. And it seemed like Steve Curtis didn't really want to play them very much. He stuck with West, Verra Zhao, and he didn't really want to give guys like Kavanaughan much of a chance. And that's what I think I'm curious to watch over the next few months is how much skir-sticked with his veterans and how much he goes with the younger players, who are a huge portion of his bench right now. On opening night, the Cavs got their trophy, and then they just mangled the Knicks. Was that more about the Caves or more about the Knicks?

Well, it's hard to say after one game, but let's say it's more about both than come to conclusions really fast. I mean, I think the Caves, I always feel like at the start of the season, the teams with more continuity have a huge edge on teams that made a bunch of additions. And pretty much everybody in the Cavs knows who they are, knows their role on the team. They know what they're going to do. And they just look like they picked up right off from where they were four months ago. Whereas the Knicks are adding a bunch of new players. And Rose obviously didn't practice much in the preseason.

And they're still trying to figure out what makes sense for them. I feel like there's some guys in that team who want to play triangle. and there's some guys like Rose who want to play more pick and roll. And the Knicks right now just don't know who they are whatsoever. Since we are going to overreact to everything, do, is the Knicks, are they going to be able to fit together? Is that a fit with Rose and with Carmelo and Porzinkas? It's going to be tough.

If you like, just from watching them last season, I don't think many Bulls fans were like, man, Rose and nowhere are the answers anymore. And those are their two main addition. this off season. And it just seemed like watching them play. You just kind of wanted to move KP to the five and Mello to the floor right away.

But they've got Noah out here, they got Kyle O'Quinn out here, and the floor were just a lot smaller. And it wasn't really sure what these big men were adding to the team at that point. Well, let's be honest. Everybody wants to see Porzingis, and Porcingis has a chance to become, possibly a big-time star in the league.

And that's what I wonder. I know. And again, all this stuff, We're saying the caveat is that they played one game. But I do watch that and wonder like, damn, man, is he going to be able to become a star playing with these guys? And I really don't know. Yeah, if you look around the league,

all these young seven-footers, kind of multi-dimensional guys like Turner, Anthony Davis, Carl Towns. But poor Zingas of that group, he's the one who doesn't really get featured much on offense. And the next had this whole team that kind of doesn't need them. And yeah, like that's the exciting to watch the start. the season of these young players.

And you don't want to watch a guy just kind of fade to the distance while Rose is holding the ball 17 times a game. Noah's holding the ball not doing much. It's like, let's get to the young fun guys. Yeah. Blazers beat the jazz on opening night and Lillard had a monster night. 39, 9 rebounds, 6 assists. Steve Kerr's pick for MVP was outstanding.

And then how about this? A leading score for the jazz on opening night was the ever young Joe Johnson. Any takeaways from checking out the Blazers Jazz? Yeah, that was really interesting kind of like battle of styles. So you had Portland running pick and rolls and just Lillard going off screen and shooting threes right away. And then Utah, they had the size in the back court with Hood and Johnson. And they were pounding Lillard and McCollum in the post and just shuner on top of them. So you really had two back courts you couldn't guard each other whatsoever.

And they just went back and forth over the course of the game. That was probably the best game I've seen so far in this early season. Does it say anything about Utah? Well, Utah is tough because they don't have Hayward right now. They don't have favors right now. They don't have Burks. And they're giving a lot of minutes to guys like Shelvin Mack and Joe Ingalls, who you don't think are going to be huge parts of the team this season.

And you just hope this season isn't like last year. They lost so many games to injury. They never really found out what they could be. I think everyone wants to see what a health that Utah team could look like. All right, Chuck. Those are the first three games. And I'm not too terribly much to overreact with, except for, the Warriors is the overreaction thing, right? Like, that's the superb one.

The Cavs we expect to be awesome. Really don't know on the Knicks. Both, you know, Blazers in Utah look pretty good in their first time out, nothing particularly to really overreact to. And then you had the Warriors game, which is, I still can't believe that happened. I really can't. I still can't. I can believe, I guess I could foresee them getting beat, but getting just demolished on their home floor, was just, I believe in the words of Bill Simmons, it's just weird.

Yeah, I mean, there were sport books. I saw a line like at 81 games over under for the Warriors this year. So I don't think anybody expected that. And it's fun, frankly. It's glad I'm glad it's something different to talk about. I'm glad that's not just the Warriors going to starting a decent 24-0 again. I guess it's more fun this way to overreact. Did Katie make the Warriors worse?

I mean, why not, right? We got a long story. All right, Charles. You wrote on the ringer.com, there's the roundup today this morning, the shoot-around, where everybody kind of talked about a game that they focused on. And you actually happen to focus on a game that I was at last night, which is the Grizzlies and the Timberwolves. Really weird game because the Grizzlies were down like 16 to 1 and then 20 to 3, and it just looked like, oh, no, they're without Chandler Parsons, they're without Tony Allen, they're without Brandon Wright, like three of their top six guys. and worst nightmares realized when Andrew Harrison and James Ennis

and these guys are announced the starting lineup. But the Grizzlies, you know, same as it always was when the game's on the line. It's Mike Conley and it's Mark Gassall. And like when those two guys have been healthy and on the court together, the Grizzlies have won a boatload of games over the last several years. And like same as it ever was, last five, ten possessions, it's going to be those two guys and they're either going to deliver or they're not. and they delivered last night.

Yeah, I mean, you had Minnesota. They came out like on fire, yeah, 20 to 3. And it was just like, oh, my gosh, just the changing of the garbage, watching it happen right in front of our eyes. And it was a little different this year. You had, to me, the big takeaway was Mark taking three-threes. That was his main three points that he took all last season, which is just insane.

Fisdale has told him he wants him to shoot four a game. Markisaw, to shoot four threes a game. game and he shot three last night like they're clearly just going to shoot their everybody on the team is going to shoot threes i think people are going to watch the grizzlies and it's it's going to be jarring for a little while because they don't play the slow down drag you into the mud style anymore yeah now and chanelanard parsons too they're still pushing the face and shooting threes yeah and here's it and here's the thing on minnesota let me just say this because uh they they've got crazy athletes and tibodeau is going to teach them how to win but i i i i

And I know it sounds like cliche all the time, you know, you got to learn how to win. But, like, you really do. And they still don't know what their go-to thing is down the stretch. I mean, Vince Carter, who is the oldest player in the league, was locking down Andrew Wiggins for, like, the entire fourth quarter. You know, one of the biggest shots of the game, they took a Towns three. Levine, you know, sometimes just decides he's going to take over. Like, they still really don't have their pecking order figured out. Whereas, like I told you, every possession down the stretch,

the Grizzlies are just going to run Mike Conley and Marcus Hall picking rolls and something's coming out of it. Whereas Minnesota, they don't really know what they're doing down the stretch yet. And I know people have really high expectations. But that's the kind of thing that has to get figured out because you play a ton of close games. Yeah, I mean, I remember one thing I saw, and they were talking about Chris Dunn, the Wolf's new rookie. And they were saying, oh, he's actually like the fourth oldest player on the team.

They still have so many young guys. And I think everybody looks at towns. They see how polished he is. And they kind of project forward on that. But Wiggins, Levine, Rubio, Gorgi Jang, Shabazz Muhammad. They're also kind of figuring out who they are in the league. Well, even not Rubio, but done. They have just so many young guys.

And maybe it's going to take one or two years. I wouldn't surprise me at all. Like we always like to jump the gun, these people. We never want to have many patience for a young team. The other thing is town spend a lot. of time outside the three point line. That kind of surprised me. You know, he's out pretty far away from the basket,

and he's a guy that can really, like, you know, you don't want to fall into that all the time because he is a pretty dominant inside presence when he wants to be, too. I mean, I like the old face-up game and everything, and he's outstanding, and he can really, and he can even take guys off the dribble, but he spends a lot of time on the perimeter, that's for sure.

Heat Magic, Hassan Whiteside, leading scorer for the heat. What are the chances Hassan Whiteside leads the heat in scoring? Well, it's couldn't be him or Dragich. It's just, it's weird to watch this heat team now. There's so many new faces.

Like, you've never even, they got like Rodney McGruder playing minutes, James Johnson, Wayne. I mean, it's just a really different new team now than it was over the last few seasons. It's just to San Wideside's team. There's really no one else there anymore.

It's kind of weird. How quick this? Did you ever in a million years, imagine you would ever say that phrase. It's just Hassan Whiteside's team. Yeah, it happened really fast. Like Wade, came with Wade and Bosch. Now it just, it's just, Dionne We're just playing 34 minutes.

I mean, it's a whole brand new bunch in Miami. It'll be interesting to watch them figure out who they are as a team beyond Giffas on the ball. Speaking of who they are, Frank Vogel's team, that Orlando team, like the roster, I don't know, you look at it. It doesn't really make sense. In game one, it didn't make all that much sense. right? Yeah, the question is going to be, can they play Gordon and Peyton and a traditional

big man? Is there giving enough space on the floor? And are they going to be a defensive team? Are they trying to win now or develop these young players? It's just they've really, they've kind of caught themselves in the middle and they have to figure out, I mean, kind of what we've been saying, they have like Boas to figure out who they are pretty fast. They didn't have Beyond Bo. I don't know how much that's going to affect it. And when they're starting him and Busevich kind of changes what their team looks like. Maverton, the Pacers played their first game, and they played against each other, and the game went to overtime. And, you know, we talk about all these great young players in the league.

Miles Turner usually doesn't get brought up, but like he is after first game, right? Because he dropped 30 and 16 in night number one. How much of that is about Miles Turner? How much of that is? Maybe there's some real inside weakness at Dallas. Well, that game was pretty crazy. The Maviside had played Dirk Nevitzky at the five a ton. they weren't scoring enough points.

They got back in the game going super small. So they're playing Dirk at the 5, and they're playing Darren Williams, Berea, Seth Curry lineups. So they're going to give up a lot of points playing like that. And yet Indiana, too, is the same way. So they have Miles Turner at the 5, and then a bunch of smaller guys around him.

And it just seems like the Pacers are going to, they're changing a lot. They're going away from, they fired, they let go of Vogel, and they're just going to emphasize Turner and play really small. And the question is, for both those teams, are they going to be decent enough on defense to make, to like survive

because like they can score a lot of points. They're going to guard anybody. And Turner's don't score a lot of points as the big man inside, but can he hold the defense down with guys like Monta and Jeff Teague on the perimeter? Not much help around him in the front of front either. It looks like they nailed that Turner pick for the draft though. Oh yeah. I mean, it's crazy.

Because they don't get high picks, right? Indiana's been so good for so long. long they don't get high picks and i mean this might have been another i don't want to say paul george but like you know you get that middle of the first round kind of stuff and i don't know this kid looks fantastic miles turn yeah like for all the stuff about tanking and whatnot if you can draft really well and you stay where you are yeah the patient's got paul george and miles turner and even that old team they found lance stevenson the second round roy hibbert at the the middle of the first round.

And there are still good players falling in the draft. And if you just, if you stay where you are and you know what you're doing, you can kind of rebuild your team from anywhere. You don't have to necessarily have a high draft pick. Why should I be surprised that the Celtics played a close game against the Nets? Because I will say when I pulled up that the game log, I was like, wait, why was that 122 to 117? And who is Justin Hamilton?

And why is he leading Brooklyn in scoring? Yeah, I didn't get to watch any of that. game but that is a weird box score brooke lopez played only played 21 minutes that seven points and the net still score 117 points like that that that's team is going to be maybe the weirdest team in the league this year and who knows what they're trying to do with this roster at this point i guess just by time to they get some young guys in there but it's just all over the map and and like what is and their mode of operation to get young guys is is still pretty shot but they have the they're still giving up picks to this day yeah so like they don't have

the, that's the crazy thing about the Nets. They're the horrible team that, like, isn't incentivized to tank. Yeah, it's just hard to have much reason to watch the Nets. There's so many interesting young teams out there. I mean, like, Jeremy Linn is fine, but why would you want to watch someone on nightly base? And you have bogged on Bionovich taking 17 shots a game.

It's just hard for me to see. I guess I have to watch all 30 teams, but that's the one team I really have no, not too much desire to watch much this season. Raptors beat the Pistons and one of the big performers was DeRosen, obviously. He dropped 40 in the first game. He had 27 shots. And he's got the rare thing going where he can drop 40 and he didn't hit a three.

Like that almost never happens with perimeter guys anymore. But there it was, same as it ever was for DeRosen last night. And that was pretty emphatic, right? to win almost by 20 points against the Pistons in night number one. Yeah, you know with Amar, he's going to get his shots up. He doesn't take a lot of threes, but he takes a lot of shots. And, you know, you give a guy 27 shots a game. He'll score a lot eventually just on the more shots to go up,

the more to go in, right? Where are you at on the Rosen? I don't know. I mean, if you look at last year's playoff run, for as far as they got, he had so many games where he just held the ball, didn't get right just took shots constantly. I mean, it's great what he does.

I don't know about him. I'm probably lower on him than most people, just because I feel like he just takes a lot of shots. And that's 50% of the battle right there for scoring a lot of points. He doesn't really do much.

Well, hey, the other one, the other one, it kind of overshadows because everybody's going to talk about De Rosen's 40. I do want to imagine, since we're overreacting everything that we've seen just so far.

How about Valentunis with the 32 and 11? I think everybody's kind of weighted is there going to be a Valenciunist breakout? Is it possible? Like, is he what he is? Because it seems like every year it's like, oh, this is the year he takes the big leap forward. Is there a big leap forward that Valentunus can or possibly will take?

Or was that just like one awesome night on opening night? Well, I mean, the thing I remember about Jonas, he's only 24. He's been in the league six years, but he's still, like the Mavs have a rookie center, A.J. Hammonds, who's about the same age as Jonas. he just played in the NBA for so long. We kind of think, oh, well, he is who he is, but there's still a lot of time for him. And I think for him, it's just,

is he going to get the ball? Because obviously you got DeRosen. Larry didn't shoot much. It's, well, this team allow him to play a bigger role. I think that is probably the biggest question for him, is will he be featured? Will they find a way to get him the ball consistently? Because, yeah, if you're a big man,

you play 30 minutes a night and you get like eight shots, there's only so good you're going to look, no matter how talented you actually. Yeah, the other thing is on the piston side, they were way worse without Reggie Jackson last year. And it looks like they're just going to have to tread water until they get him back. Yeah, like, Is Smith as your primary option on offense running the ball, it's going to be tough. It's going to be tough to win games that way. The guy I want to see more than Stanley Johnson if everybody's going to be out for a while.

Well, they need the points. You can't just take the points away, you know? I mean, Reggie Jackson is the kind of guy they were counting on like every night to get him almost 20 points. and for whatever it's Smith does, it ain't score, right? That's not his deal. Yeah, he's played on like eight teams in 10 years. And so if he's just going to be your main guy,

it's going to be tough. It's going to be tough to win games like that. And that's a team in that middle of the east, the gaps are so small that one injury can just change your whole season. And they have to hope he's not out too long because, yeah, there's just not much separation right there from those seven or eight teams fighting for a playoff spot. loved seeing the monster first night out of Michael Kid Gilchrist.

You know, this kid has been through it the first couple years of his career, but 2314 gets a steal in the game. And so, you know, we'll keep on losing this guy to injuries. But at least for one night, instant review on Kid Gilchrist was not only is he back, the big first game, like that jumps off the box score for sure. Yeah, he's still not shooting threes, but he just has to make things happen. That's always kind of been his game, just getting in the mix, creating turnovers, just getting, he had 14 rebounds, like just attacking the glass. That's probably, I think maybe a little bit, focus on what you can do well and ignore the things you can't. So maybe, like, if he's never become a three-point shooter, play him in more space and let him do what he does best.

Of course, it helped playing the Bucks who they're really trying to figure out, what they're going to be about this season. They have a lot of questions. What about Monroe being a bench player? Well, I think that's just who he is now. Look around the league, you have Greg Monroe, Al Jefferson, Enis Cantor, all those kind of big guys who post up

and don't move their feet. The way the league is moving, it's just hard to feature them anymore as starters, unless you're going to give them the ball constantly, and then it's going to be worth the tradeoff with their defense. And it just seems like cross the league, The bigger store post player is now a second-opt, second-unit guy.

It's just weird because, like, their starting lineup is, Dahlavadova, Plumlee, Antitocampio, you know, Greek freak. I'll just call him that. Jabari and then Miro Toledevich. I mean, that is, that's not that fun. I mean, Greek freak's really fun, and he had a really big night. But other than that, like, I don't know. Well, it's just tough without Middleton, because he was such a big.

He was actually their most, their best player by. net rating last season. And without him out there, they're either playing really slow guys who shoot or athletic guys who can't. So either their offense and their defense is really suffering. They just got to figure out which side of the floor to emphasize because they probably don't have enough two-way players to be decent at both. Take a quick break, and me and Charks are going to talk about the rest of the teams

that we have seen one time and leads us to possible overreactions. It's officially basketball season, so it's time to ask yourself a crucial question. And where will you be watching the games? Parked on a stool at a crusty sports bar, pass, crammed onto a friend's couch? Ma' you can do better with Sling TV. Watch NBA basketball on your terms and your turf. The Sling Orange service has live hoops you love on ESPN and TNT, as well as shows, sports news, and more on the top networks, all for just 20 bucks a month.

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Anthony Davis. I love Anthony Davis so much for this because I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, honestly don't even care that they lost. But in the first podcast who did this year, we gave predictions for this year, and I said, while everybody's in love with towns and all these other young players in the NBA, the best young player in the NBA is still Anthony Davis. And, boy, did he reward me. Now, his team stinks and they lost, but 50 points, 16 rebounds, seven steals, five assists,

four blocks. How on earth can you lose a game when a guy has that kind of a night? that seems impossible to me. Yeah, New Orleans, they're starting in a hole again. It just seems like with Drew Holiday being out indefinitely, there's just so few guys who can do anything on offense besides Davis. Like, he's going to put up huge stats if he can say healthy because there's just no other options.

It's crazy to say it, but they need Lance Stevenson. Like they're going to have to depend on him a lot for a while, at least until Holiday gets back. Well, and I'll also say, not a lot of while I do pat myself on the back for the Davis prediction not a great debut for my buddy buddy healed who you know I was expecting him right like to be able to knock down some shots and get out there

again it's a first game you only played 17 minutes but he's two of eight with the four points yeah I mean you look around like all right who else is going to score and I guess when you when you see you know I guess the answer to my original question which is like How does Anthony Davis have a night like that and a loss? I guess it's because your starting lineup is Etouin Moore, Tim Frazier, Omar Aceach, and Solomon Hill. So who the hell are you expecting to score, right?

Yeah, with Buddy, he's a guy, he's kind of a shooter right now at this point of his career. He just needs guys to create shots for him. And there really isn't anyone they can count on an offense right now besides Davis. So it's just maybe the game plan is going to be let Anthony Davis eat. make everybody else beat you. And game one, that worked well for the nuggets. I think, yeah, Davis had 50 points. The rest team had 52 points.

So that's going to be tough to allow it. I will tell you, I lived through a season last year where the same phrase that you used earlier was used, which is you're going to have to count on Lance Stevenson a lot. And that's a tough deal, Jonathan. And he had some moments of nervous. Yeah, well, then they lost. 17 of their last 19 games, and everybody forgets that.

The moments were when Mario Chalmers was still, before he blew out his Achilles. It's a tough life when you're going to the arena, counting on you need Lance to really come through for you. But we'll see. What about the nuggets? Anything to overreact with regarding the nuggets? Yosev Nurkich, with the big opening night,

and everybody kind of likes this whole Nurkich-Yokic thing that they got going on. So anything to overreact with the Nuggets? Well, I guess to overreact on that, can they get both those guys going at the same time? Because they're both traditional centers. They have some, you always have some inside, outside game. But can they figure out a way to make both them work consistently? Like, could they be like Zach and Mark?

And can their team work with pounding two big guys inside? And that's probably the big question with Denver this year, is where that front court pairing can work or whether they have to trade one of them. And I would assume it would be Nirkage at this point. And I think that's the biggest question. Or do you trade Farid? Do you just say, all right, Farid's going to go somewhere else. You could get something for it.

Ferreid's a starter in the NBA. Come on. I don't know. I mean, they've been going to train for a while and it hasn't been getting much luck. You don't think Kenan Farid could be a starter for a lot. I mean, a boatload of teams, I would think. Well, you look at it. He can't shoot, right?

He's not going to protect the rim. So it's hard to find a spot for a 6-8 guy who doesn't shoot, doesn't protect the rim, not a great post-up player. He just has to find a very narrow role where he's going to succeed. And he's found the block for about two years and he hasn't gotten much pullback for many teams.

I must be hired on Kenneth Farreed than other people are. I think that's where I'm at on Fair Reid because I don't know, man. I feel like, I don't know. I feel like I would want to trade for him, but I'd probably be a terrible GM, so whatever.

The big story out of the Thunder game is Russell Westbrook almost getting a triple double and a fan with the double bird right to his face. And then Ambide, right? I guess the instant reviews are on Embed are tremendous. And then we've got the whole, yeah, this is about what we thought, which is it's going to be the Russell Westbrook show for Oklahoma City. Yeah, I think with Embed it's just fun to watch an exciting young player on Philadelphia right now. Like they're going to be bad again. But these last few years, they've been bad.

and there have been not many fun young players to watch. And that's really the worst of both worlds. And there's just nothing going on. So even if MB took 16 shots, and that's fine. 16 shots in 22 minutes. I appreciate that more than anything. If you haven't played in two years and you're taking one shot a minute, you've got the right idea about this season.

Like, let's just get some stats on, man. Six of 16, and he also hits his free throws. You know, this is the thing with him and with towns is that they're good free throw shooters. You know, some of these guys that are big-time offensive rebounders or guys that can play down on the block, like a drum end or a, or a D'Andre Jordan. You know, if you're having trouble dealing with them, you just foul the crap out of them. Whereas you can't do that with Ambide and you can't do that with towns. Like, it's a mistake.

Like, those guys shoot a higher percentage from the free throw. Like, you're giving them points because these guys can knock it down. They both shoot the ball really, really well, and they look good doing it. Yeah, and it's the same thing with Miles. Turner to bring it back to there. There's just this whole new breed of big men coming in the league. You got these seven footers you can play on the perimeter and shoot. And the league's having going away against traditional big man.

And it seems like that's really the next, maybe that's the big story for this regular season, is these next great, these young big men are bringing the league back, kind of finding the middle ground between playing bigger lineups and playing faster ones. Let's just play big fast lineups then. And it's find a guy who can do that. Regarding Oak City, surprised Sabonis, this kid was a starter?

That is a little weird just because they're so little shooting and he wasn't a shooter in college. And because right now they've got Westbrook, Oladipo, Roberson, Adam, Sabonis. There's not a single consistent three-point shooter in the mix there. So you would think they want to bring in maybe Ilyosova

or Morrow or Singler even, somebody who consistently stretched the floor. Because right now it's just pack the lane and dare they're them there than the beach from the perimeter. You had Ola Diva go four for 16. Maybe in worse, could Roberson go O for two?

So that's your, if Russ has the ball most of the game, he's got to have shooters around him. So a bonus, it's definitely, it's an aggressive move by Oklahoma City. And I'm not sure what that really makes sense to have that little shooting around Russ.

Well, I talked about this on the last ringer podcast, which is the question regarding Oklahoma City is what kind of score is Ola Depot, right? Because, you know, just each and every night, like last night, get to 103, or you've got to get to, you know, over 100 most nights. And so you're going to get

the 30 or close to 30 out of Russ. And then like every night, like where are you getting your point from? Even if Canter's a 15 point per game guy or maybe even a little more, you know, I feel like Oladipo's, he's got to be a really good scorer for them. And at least for night one, I mean, they're in a barn burner versus the 76ers. And Oladipo is, let's just say not a big time score last night. But again, it's one game. He took 16 shots in 26 minutes, so it wasn't for lack of trying. Yeah.

They just got to figure out their rotation, whether it's, can they find lineups that have shooting around Oladipo and Westbrook? And can they help each other out at all? It's going to be a weird team this season for Oklahoma City. It's so different. Like, they've had KD and Ivaka for, like, eight straight years. So everyone, it's brand new for everybody. Everyone's roles are totally different.

and there's going to be a big adjustment period for everyone, I think, on that team. Anything to overreact to with King's Sons? Man, the Sons looked pretty bad, that's for sure. I think that's the Kings. Two 19-point quarters to start the season? Yeah, that's not what you want. You don't want two 19-point quarters to start the year. Yeah, there's just, what's the plan in Phoenix?

Are they just going to go full rebuild with their young guys? Because if you're not in the Kings, beat you by 25 points in opening night, That's not a great start by any means. What about the Kings? Do we just take away that, all right, that's not about the Kings. That's about how bad the Suns are going to be. Well, I mean, Demarcis is still doing what he does. If I guess, I mean, I think to me it's a little more about the Suns.

I'd be what I'd worry about before I started focusing too much on the Kings. The Suns, they don't shoot very well. They got a lot of young guys. and there's no real defined roles for them. They're just a lot to figure out in Phoenix, and it's just been a downhill slope for the last three years. I goofed on the pod that I did with Kevin O'Connor that regarding the Sons,

I was going to keep track of 30 of these articles written about them giving each other high-fives. Unfortunately, I was unable to watch last night's game, but I'm going to imagine that the whole tracking high-fives thing didn't go all that well last night. Not a lot to high-five each other about. Well, it's never a bad sign if that's. It's the big preseason storyline. It's high-fi.

I mean, come on now. Rockets Lakers. Uh-oh. Life without Kobe begins with a win. And Hardin has the crazy night, 34.17 assists, eight rebounds. They put up 114 and they lose. So what do we make of Lakers Rockets after one game? Well, it definitely feels like Houston's going to be a team to watch.

Every game they're going to be in is going to be a shootout, it seems like. Because it's hard to stop the Rockets, and it looks like it's hard from to stop anybody either. So it's just going to be night after night out of this, which is, I mean, that's fine. It's something fun to watch, that's for sure. 34 and 17. That's cool. And eight rebounds too. You got Russ and Hardin going back triple doubles every night, maybe.

Well, a good opening night for DeAngelo Russell. But how about, can we overreact to Josh? Jordan Clarkson? Eight for 12 shooting. I mean, he's going to come and get shots up. That's great. I will tell you that two years ago, he cooked the Grizzlies, and they went in the locker room after, and Zibo said, hey, he said, who was their kid on the Lakers?

Right? And somebody told him, so they told him it was Jordan Clarkson. He said, who? And he said, where was he drafted? And they told him, like, yeah, he was drafted the second round. And Zibo said, who the hell's doing this drafting? They should let me draft. And I was like, well, if you get the Zipo stamp of approval, you're probably a baller, man.

He should let me. So Zipo was petitioning to be a general manager. But Jordan Clarkson, with a huge first night with the, who did he guess that, 25 points off the bench? All right, here's an overreaction. Is it possible the Lakers aren't going to suck? Well, they'll score a lot of points, but they're just not. much defense on this team. So you wander over the course of season. I'll say this, they'll be a lot more fun to watch. You've got Ingram, Clarkson, DeAngelo. They're going to spread

the floor. They're going to play that kind of golden state, spread the floor offense and just get up a lot of shots. They'll be fun to watch, but are they going to play enough defense? Who's the late game? Do they have the right guys in the late game scenario? I wouldn't, that's, that's no very. I wouldn't go that far. I expect them to be a pretty bad team this season. All right. And on the Houston thing, honestly, when you're talking about all these shootouts, you're so right. You look at their roster with Ryan Anderson, Eric Gordon, James Harden. Those guys are going to play big minutes, right?

Like, Areza could probably get a stop for you, Capella every once in a while. Like, who is getting stopped? Like, who are you expecting to stop anybody? Like, Areza, Corey Brewer? I mean, I don't know. Like, I mean, they just don't, they're not, I know their numbers in the preseason were good. But those are, you know, I don't want to say meaningless. but I couldn't really care less.

But you look at like the guys they're going to be throwing out there, unbelievable offensive players that are absolutely going to be defensively challenged. So I think every night you could see these type of scores with Rockets, as you were saying. Yeah, not having Patrick Burley really hurts them. I think he had a knee issues out for about a month. And maybe they can get Mata Yunus back. That's kind of an underplayed storyline. He's still not signed to a contract.

He was one of their better defensive seven footers. He had that back issue last year. He hasn't played much in the last few seasons. And I think it was a weird thing. They didn't send us qualifying offer. They might want to bring him back at some point just have somebody who can play a little defense. Okay, here's the craziest.

All right, so we have one night in the books, okay? I'm going to ask you right now, and this is the ultimate of overreactions to seeing one of 82 games. The crazier statistical season, Anthony Davis, Russell Westbrook, James Harden. I'm going to say Hardin.

It's all set up for him, I think, just to have this big season. He's got the shooting around him. He'll have the ball most of the game. You think Davis, for as he played last night, he'll still need somebody to give him the ball in some nights. He doesn't really have. You feel like with Russ,

they're going to pack the pain against some teams against Oklahoma City. But as Hardin, he'll always have the open play when he goes around the screen. And he'll pass the three. He'll get to the. the lane. I expect him to have just absolutely monster numbers. Houston will be in shootouts all season long, high, high, high tempo games, close games.

So they'll play big minutes. And then Tony always has to play smaller, smaller rotations with like seven or eight guys. I'm thinking we're going to see some and he said he wanted to hardened average double it to assist the season or I think he was even 15 he said at one point. So I'll say I'll say harden right now for just the craziest stat line all season. He had 34 and 17 and eight rebounds and he was one of seven. from three last night. I mean, like, what's it going to be when? You know what I mean?

Let's just say he might, let's say he knocked down two more of those, right? If he just went three of seven, he'd have had 40 and 17 and 8. 40, 17, and 8. I mean, that is just, it's absurd. Yeah. Totally absurd. All right, so there's our first night. We've given you thoughts on every NBA team we have seen thus far.

And there's another slate of games tonight, as there will be every night going forward. Thanks for coming on today, John. No problem, man. Thanks for joining us on the NBA show. And appreciate everybody listening. You can follow Jonathan at Jonathan Charks, T-J-A-R-K-S, or you can read him at the ringer.com. Thanks again to Sling TV. Remember, it's basketball season.

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